Because the only plan for today was to take the shuttle bus into Denali National Park, sleeping in was in order. There are no hookups at Riley Creek Campground so we actually used the generator for the first time to make toast. Once we got moving, Karen and I decided to move the RV around because we had a giant puddle outside from the rain last night. As I was driving the RV around the campground, I spotted a man who looked familiar to me. It turns out it was Nate Moss. Who is Nate Moss you ask. When we started planning the RV trip back in January, I began doing research on YouTube. I was looking for people who had travelled to Alaska in a RV. To make a long story short, I stumbled upon Nate and his wife Marissa’s YouTube channel called “Less Junk, More Journey”. I said to Karen would it not be funny if we ran into one of the families that I follow on YouTube in Alaska since most of them are travelling to here in the summer. What are the odds that Nate and his family are in the same campground as us. I stopped and said a quick hello before bringing the RV back to the site.
After getting the RV set up again, Karen and I headed over to the Mercantile to use the WiFI along with a few others. The Mercantile is the general store for the campground. I think they have practically anything you need for camping. Everything from firewood to food to beverages, etc. As we were sitting there, we were deciding what to have for lunch. Karen came up with the idea of grilled cheese and I said you need tomato soup to go with it. We bought a can in the Mercantile for $3.49. I am not sure why we did not think of buying soup when we were in Fred Meyer. Michael and Liam joined us for lunch and we had a buffet. Between the grilled cheese and tomato soup, we also had leftover hotdogs, veggies and dip and hummus and pitas. The boys hung out with us for part of the afternoon while Dave and Cathy went for a walk.
There are only a couple of ways that you can actually explore Denali National Park. You can drive your own private vehicle fifteen miles into the park and then you have to turn around. If you want to go further into the park, you have to buy a bus ticket that will either be an eight hour or twelve hour ride. Since we did not want to do any of those, there is one more option. A free shuttle bus that is two hours. We caught the 3:20pm bus just outside the Caribou Loop.
There were a couple of stops before we actually entered the park. The scenery changed as we drove through the park. There were mountains everywhere and large expansive plains. It is really hard to describe. The farthest point that the bus goes to is Savage River. The driver said that he would be stopping here for about fifteen minutes. If we wanted to stay longer, the next bus would be in a hour. We quickly got off and realized that we were not dressed properly. It was much colder than we thought it would be so we took some pictures and got back on the bus.
We did not see any animals on the way into the park but we did see two moose on the way out. One of the moose was a bull moose with very large antlers. Dave even spotted a grizzly bear but none of us saw it. We got back around 5:20pm and just as we were walking into the campground, there was a moose just relaxing in the brush.
After I dropped my stuff off, Liam and I went down to say hello to Nate, Marissa and their daughter Hensley from “Less Junk, More Journey”. They were so sweet and kind enough to answer my questions and pose for a couple of pictures. I even got Hensley to take a picture of me with her mom and dad. Make sure to check them out on YouTube.
Everybody had dinner at their own RVs tonight. Karen and I made spaghetti and so did The Paisley Maloneys. Steve and Linda enjoyed more of Steve’s halibut. Karen, Linda, Steve and I walked to Mercantile to have ice cream for dessert. Our evening ended with another campfire and my attempt at making nachos over an open flame. It was a success. The other thing that we did was to figure out how to split of nine hours of driving over two days. Stay tuned.
Today’s miles = 0
Total miles = 839.9
Reading your blog is always like living and experiencing the same place thorough your words… Excellent… Hope you had an awesome vacation and birthday… See you soon